Jury’s out: The wheels of justice grind to a halt in the wake of the terrorist attacks

Tuesday, I woke up and took the bus downtown and went to the twenty-fourth-floor courtroom of the Daley Center. Security was tight and there was a big line, but I assumed it was the usual morning rush of court cases. I was the first juror present in the courtroom because I had written down the wrong time. Soon, a few others appeared.

A policewoman told me in hushed tones, “They bombed the World Trade Center.” I wondered who the “they” was, as I stood contemplating the way we tend to say “they” meaning a monolithic enemy, some generic presence from outside the comfortable “us.”

There was a TV there in the room, tuned to CNN and I didn’t quite know what to make of it until the judge told us to go home and come back tomorrow. He had an interesting look on his face.